My experience with Wild Bears up close and personal

The first experience where I was alone walking on a trail and saw a bear luckily for me we were each scared of each other and walked opposite directions. I was really very relieved not to have to confront a bear that day because I was 17 years old taking a leisurely walk to the base of Yosemite Falls up a trail where I could walk directly under the falls then in 1965 when I was 17. This was the first time I was alone with a bear on a trail. All my other experiences with bears I was with one or more other people when this occurred so I felt safer than being 17 and unarmed and alone and not expecting to see a bear on the trail in front of me.

The next experience was near my then 2 1/2 acres of land that I built a house on deep in the Mt. Shasta Forest Subdivision near McCloud. I had a 1974 International Harvester Scout II which was a really great 4 wheel drive with a locked rear end for better traction then and I was traveling down remote dirt roads far away from where I lived with my father and my then young son who was likely 6 to 8 years old when a big male black bear likely the biggest black bear I had ever seen before came out of the forest and confronted us by standing on his rear legs and confronting us. Because I didn't want him to damage my vehicle or us I backed up so he wouldn't break a window or pull off one of the doors or puncture the tires with his claws. Once he realized we were not going to attack him or harm him he stopped standing up on his rear legs and threatening us and went down on all fours and went back into the forest leaving us very surprised and grateful none of us were harmed by the angry bear who didn't want to be disturbed by us.

The third experience was with a grizzly but was funny to me because it was in Yellowstone National Park and we were in our then motor home and my youngest daughter was around 12 years  old then and people were gathering I found to see this grizzly bear sitting in a meadow eating flowers sort of like a flower child there. He was just lazing about feeling blissed out in the warm weather eating flowers and being happy. Then a ranger arrested a man who got too close so he wouldn't die from the Grizzly. But, I got a great experience of seeing a Grizzly in the wild while having a relatively safe experience then doing it!